AA announced Wednesday that it will begin hourly service between LAX and JFK starting in early 2014. Currently AA has between 8 and 10 daily frequencies. Staring in early 2014 frequencies will be increased to the low teens.

Clearly with this new shuttle like service, AA wont be losing too much capacity by replacing the 762's with the A321 T's.

On a side note, the article mentions there are slot restrictions at JFK and says AA will need to eliminate certain flights to accommodate the new LAX-JFK frequency. I don't know how much truth there is to that statement. I'm pretty sure AA is sitting on plenty of slots for JFK expansion.

Also interesting to note, AA will board passengers on the A321T though the L2 door. I guess that puts that debate to rest.

American 767 From United States of America, joined May 1999, 4167 posts, RR: 12
Reply 3, posted Wed May 1 2013 22:09:56 UTC (1 year 10 months 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 27501 times:

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Quoting oc2dc (Thread starter):Staring in early 2014 frequencies will be increased to the low teens.

That means at least two red eyes per night on the East bound direction, if not three.

Increasing frequency on the route not only gives additional flexibility to business travelers, it also gives the opportunity for leisure travelers to connect on all flights to Hawaii American has out of LAX.

I'm wondering if BOS-LAX will also see the A321 once the 757 is retired later this decade, I know SFO-JFK will.MIA-LAX maybe, but I think that one will continue to see 763s and 772s.

AA is indeed tight on JFK slots - hence the deal with JetBlue couple years back.

If they need to shed slots they still have quite a few AE flights which probably don't have much value, or some low hanging fruit with single frequency domestic flights to places like LAS, SEA, MCO, TPA, SAN which likely don't mean much in the bigger network picture.

If they need to shed slots they still have quite a few AE flights which probably don't have much value, or some low hanging fruit with single frequency domestic flights to places like LAS, SEA, MCO, TPA, SAN which likely don't mean much in the bigger network picture.

AA is not tight on slots whatsoever. Slots are easy to get outside peak and those slots the it acquired from B6 are still being used on routes like MCO, ORF and LAS. It is essentially siting on a good number of prime slots, not used for prime purposes.

While I think that short-haul might go, especially as PHL becomes an AA hub, LAS, SAN and SEA aren't going anywhere, and absolutely mean much in the bigger network picture as important markets for AA to serve from NYC. SAN has a second frequency that seem to operate somewhat inconsistently. LAS is double daily, as is MCO and, effective June, TPA. They are also absolutely critical feeder markets for Europe flights.

They already run 2 redeyes on LAX-JFK, one at 9:30pm and another at 11:30pm.

What I'd personally like to see is the return of the 5th, and hopefully the introduction of a 6th, frequency on SFO-JFK. The options just feel very limited right now - only 1 eastbound flight arrives in time for dinner, 2 flights leave within 65 minutes after lunch, but arrive too late for dinner, and the 4th is a decent redeye. Westbound we have 2 morning flights, then nothing for 6+ hours, then a predinner flight.

This has been expected for some time now, but I still have reservations about it being profitable enough. Perhaps DL will add some more 767s on this route, and then will see how the market responds. The CASM advantage on the A321 is going to go away quickly with only 102 seats and the labor costs of more flights. I just cannot see US management sticking to this plan after the merger unless it is profitable.

AA is going to have a the best product on the route when you look at it = brand new A321's with hourly service. Bold move on their part to get agressive again in NY after being beat up by DL and UA for the past few years. While the frequency may drop a bit after the initial hoopla, if they end up w/ 10 per day that's quite a nice setup.

With multiple carriers on the JFK-LAX route (or NYC-LAX in general), how much more capacity can the market take? I know it's a very lucrative market with tons of demand, but every market has a limit. What is the limit on this one?

1. I knew they would use 2L for boarding. Small, narrow F section doesnt need a conga line

2. Shuttle is interesting choice of words seeing as they will now have The Shuttle at LGA from US

3. Shuttle is a word usually associated with high frequency, all coach with a decent product, short haull service. I hope they dont brand it as a shuttle and then try to sell lie flat seats...it is just counter intuitive from a marketing point of view. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't have used Shuttle in the press release at all.

4. Slots...they have plenty of them. No cuts needed. They are down to like 90 flights. At one time, they had well over 100.

Quoting JBAirwaysFan (Reply 14):With multiple carriers on the JFK-LAX route (or NYC-LAX in general), how much more capacity can the market take? I know it's a very lucrative market with tons of demand, but every market has a limit. What is the limit on this one?

The demand historically has always been gigantic--especially once the movie industry started to become important in the second decade of the 20th Century. Even before the airlines became important, the major American railroads had a LOT of service between New York City and Los Angeles--note that New York Central's 20th Century Limited and Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited at times synced their schedules so passengers could easily transfer to Rock Island/Southern Pacific's Golden State Limited, Santa Fe's Super Chief or Union Pacific/Chicago & Northwestern's City of Los Angeles.

When AA introduced the DC-3, it didn't take long for AA to use it on the New York City to Los Angeles route--the plane could fly from New York City to Los Angeles in 17.5 hours (including refueling stops)--less than half the time the Super Chief train needed just to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles! Small wonder just before the American entrance into World War II, both Boeing and Douglas were developing four-engined airliners that could fly between New York City and Los Angeles faster and requiring fewer fuel stops.

In my humble opinion, it was the burgeoning Los Angeles-New York City route that drove the development of the Douglas DC-6/7/8, the Lockheed Constellation, and the Boeing 707. The fact in 2013 you have multiple airlines flying many flights per day between LAX and JFK shows how strong this route is even now. AA's decision to increase the flight frequency between JFK and LAX--especially with the impending arrival of the A321 models--continues this trend.

Although this still portends a substantial reduction in capacity (particularly in Y) - which is obviously the point. I take his statement of frequency in the "low teens" to mean less than 15. So even assuming 14 flights per day - which I think is quiet plausible - you're still talking at least a 15% overall capacity reduction.

As for the frequencies themselves - I agree with others - AA shouldn't have too much trouble finding the JFK slots. Plus, while BusinessWeek might have called it an "hourly shuttle," schedule and time zone realities means that of course it will not be quite hourly throughout the day westbound, and certainly not eastbound. I could see:

Quoting RayChuang (Reply 18):The demand historically has always been gigantic--especially once the movie industry started to become important in the second decade of the 20th Century. Even before the airlines became important, the major American railroads had a LOT of service between New York City and Los Angeles--note that New York Central's 20th Century Limited and Pennsylvania Railroad's Broadway Limited at times synced their schedules so passengers could easily transfer to Rock Island/Southern Pacific's Golden State Limited, Santa Fe's Super Chief or Union Pacific/Chicago & Northwestern's City of Los Angeles.

When AA introduced the DC-3, it didn't take long for AA to use it on the New York City to Los Angeles route--the plane could fly from New York City to Los Angeles in 17.5 hours (including refueling stops)--less than half the time the Super Chief train needed just to travel from Chicago to Los Angeles! Small wonder just before the American entrance into World War II, both Boeing and Douglas were developing four-engined airliners that could fly between New York City and Los Angeles faster and requiring fewer fuel stops.

In my humble opinion, it was the burgeoning Los Angeles-New York City route that drove the development of the Douglas DC-6/7/8, the Lockheed Constellation, and the Boeing 707. The fact in 2013 you have multiple airlines flying many flights per day between LAX and JFK shows how strong this route is even now. AA's decision to increase the flight frequency between JFK and LAX--especially with the impending arrival of the A321 models--continues this trend.

AA must know something us armchair CEO's dont...oh yeah, THEY have the gorilla's load of corporate contracts between both cities when it comes to travel...the guarantees must have already been in those corporate contracts to warrant the extra flights, which in my mind, are a good thing...I better hop on a 762 while I can! Oh, one question though...whats the capacity of AA's A321's vs the 762's?

Maybe they see the need to "keep up with the joneses" in terms of frequency (UA in EWR) also. I totally understand EWR and JFK transcon market dynamics are not the same. But there is now a real precedent for high frequency flights to LAX and SFO from the NYC area.

UA strangely uses RJ's to fly to IAD. Maybe they should dump those flights and add more transcon frequencies to up the ante.

It is strange to call it a "shuttle," I agree. Shuttle implies something like BOS-LGA, DFW/DAL-IAH, SFO-LAX.

So UA added flts on EWR-LAX/SFO for a total of ~14 flts/day on each just because VX came in and now AA is adding another 5 each. Year over Year this has to be a ton of additional capacity on NYC-LAX/SFO.

25 sw733
: I disagree completely. To me, shuttle service doesn't matter with length, but rather with frequency. Hourly service between Los Angeles and New York

26 American 767
: I'm wondering what is the survival chance of EWR-LAX for AA. I see it going seasonal. I don't see it going anymore than 1x daily year round unless th

27 divemaster08
: As much as it seems a lot, I doubt this is really a huge increase in seats available when they replace the B762 with the A321. I cant imagine there wi

28 commavia
: Yes - the best. Based on the pictures, the narrowbody cabin with that big a seat and a solid partition wall is going to give AA's F cabin on these pl

29 PHX787
: Now that's just silly....but JFK-PHX, should they decide to beef up PHX, does make some sense...but lets look below: JFK-MIA shuttles make the best s

30 CODC10
: On limited frequencies. Further, DL has no plans to roll out 767 service to all LAX+SFO flights, so their best product will only be available a handf

31 commavia
: True, although remember that while these A321s will have the same number of F seats as the 762s, they will also have 10 fewer C seats. So net-net, ea

32 klwright69
: If losing F were such a devastating blow to lose F, UA would keep F. So, maybe.